The Very Best Iced Tea

Lightly lemony, slightly sweet, this iced tea is perfection. The recipe hails from an old cookbook, and to me it’s the very best there is, the recipe you will turn to when you are entertaining or when you simply need something incredibly quenching on a hot summer day.

A few weeks ago, I stopped by my aunt and uncle’s house in Vermont en route home from a soccer tournament with my daughters. It was a Sunday, late in the afternoon, and we couldn’t stay long, so we made the most of it, sliding into stools around their big farmhouse table, ready to receive all the nourishment time would allow.

Within minutes of arriving, my aunt had toasted us thick slices of peasant bread and slathered them with butter. As we savored our toast, she poured us glasses of homemade iced tea and pushed plates of strawberries and apricots our way. With two dogs lounging at our feet, we wished we could stay forever.

She sent us off each with a sugar cone piled high with scoops of vanilla ice cream, and as we drove home, my youngest, Tig, asked when we could make the iced tea again. I had first made it with her several summers ago, after she returned from my parents’ house raving about it. The recipe comes from the Prouts Neck Cookbook, the source of dozens of recipes many of the women in my family relied on for years.

This past Monday, I made the iced tea with Tig, who, one week into summer break, already seems bored. I enlisted her to squeeze the lemons and sent her out back to cut some mint, the only herb I can’t kill. Twenty minutes later, the tea was done, chilling in the fridge, and about an hour later, we were ladling it into ice-filled glasses and relishing its quenching abilities.

Every time I make this tea, I wonder why I don’t make it more often as it is so very good: lightly lemony, slightly sweet, and incredibly refreshing. If you are expecting company this week for a July Fourth gathering or planning a future summer get-together, I can’t recommend it enough.

Wren snuggling with sweet Leto and Homer (who is recovering from surgery):

The Prouts Neck Cookbook:

My grandmother’s handwritten recipe… isn’t her writing beautiful?

How to Make Iced Tea, Step by Step

First, juice some lemons. You’ll need 2/3 cup.

Enlist the help of anyone lurking around your kitchen.

Then gather some mint:

Place the mint and 5 tea bags in a large vessel (ideally a pitcher large enough to hold roughly 9 cups of liquid):

Add 1 cup sugar (see notes in the recipe if you wish to add less):

Then cover with 4 cups of boiling water and let steep for 10 minutes:

After 10 minutes, remove the mint and tea bags…

… then add 4 cups cold water plus the fresh lemon juice:

Serve over ice and enjoy!

I really need a pitcher!

But a large vessel + a ladle works fine:

So refreshing!

These large ice cube molds are fun, too.

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